


Five Ways Billy and Teddy Could Have Met That Ended Badly

by Ezzy



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 23:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezzy/pseuds/Ezzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(+ 1 time they did and it went pretty well)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ways Billy and Teddy Could Have Met That Ended Badly

1)

Billy only meant to drop his Dad’s dinner off on the way back from the comic shop, but the boy in the ward had looked so lonely and out of place amongst all the adults and their piles of cards and symbols of well-wishes. No cards usually meant no friends or family, as his mother liked to whisper to him, along with all the psychological implications which Billy had become good at blocking out.

Despite that though, he’d been planning on just turning around and leaving. He didn’t know the guy, and if he had any talent at making friends, or even just simple social interaction he would be exercising it at school, not here. Besides, the ever felt presence of death here scared him, despite the fact his dad was a doctor and dealt with it every day.

But in that second that Billy had hesitated in the door-frame, the boy had turned and spotted him, locking eyes and smiling. It was a good smile, Billy mused; friendly, inviting and everything Billy usually failed at, but there seemed to be just a hint of desperation to it, and it may have been that that had him walking over to the bed without even meaning to. 

“Is that the latest Avengers comic?”

His name was Teddy, and he liked comics and action films and football and in one conversation Billy felt closer to him than any of the kids at school he’d known for years.

He came back the next day to find an empty bed and a sympathetic expression on his Dad’s face. 

His Mom would later give him a hug and a lecture about how maybe this had taught him about the frailty of the human condition, but all Billy thought he’d learnt was not to open your heart to someone in a ward marked for critical patients. 

He never even got to ask him who his favourite Avenger was. 

 

2)  
The newspaper tells Teddy the boy almost killed a classmate, but the face looking out from the accompanying picture doesn’t look like an almost-murderer. He looks scared and alone, and an inexplicable wave of protectiveness rolls through Teddy. But William Kaplan is condemned and apparently already on his way to a special facility, so he lets it go and doesn’t so much as think about him for another six years. 

Teddy’s late for a job interview, cursing himself for not checking the address before he left his crappy apartment. His internet had been on the fritz again, and it’s that and not fate (he tells himself firmly) that has him running into the lecture of one E. Bradley. The guy clearly has a chip on his shoulder, but he’s passionate and convincing and by the end Teddy has been completely converted to the mutant cause, and the campaign to curb the governments’ ability to control and suppress them.  
He never makes it to that job-interview, but he upon enquiring he gets the business card of one Ms Bishop, and instructions to call if he felt he had something to offer. 

He thinks back to the long ago article and curses himself for not questioning the ‘special facility’ or what it meant for the long forgotten William Kaplan. He still feels responsible, but now there’s an added guilt and a strange grief to accompany it.

 

3)

It’s Billy’s first successful rescue as a superhero and he’s almost vibrating with excitement. He’s feels like he’s oozing success from his pores, despite the fact he still doesn’t know how to tell his career advisor he wants to dress in spandex for a living. Not that he can take full credit, he muses as he turns to the similarly masked blond man next to him. 

They turn and smile at each other, as in-synch as they had been when they accidentally teamed up to take the gunman down, breathless wonder at what they’d accomplished zinging back and forth between them, like the sparks Billy’s still letting off. Billy wants to lean over and kiss him, though he knows that’s probably just as much the adrenalin as it is the masked man’s body under his skin-tight costume. But for a second he thinks vigilant-the-other wants to as well.

And then the moment is gone and they are two strangers who happen to be on the same rooftop, with the same unconscious gunman. 

Billy wants to exchange numbers, or at least names, but a secret identity is a secret identity for a reason. Besides, magic users don’t have the best rep at the moment, thanks to a certain childhood hero of his.

So when the guy picks up their prey (with one hand, Billy notes, salivating slightly internally), all he does is nod to him, then spring into the air, and away.

 

4)

Teddy doesn’t know the guys name, but under the ever-changing lights of the club, with alcohol swimming through his blood like a wonderful, heady poison, he had seemed stunning and Teddy had wanted to touch him. So he did. 

They had pulled each other closer, letting limbs run over a foreign body in away that was both messy and beautiful until the tension rose to a crescendo and Teddy found his head yanked down to meet the stranger’s mouth. 

He vaguely remembered his Mom telling him not to do anything stupid and cliché when he went to College, but right now leading this unknown, beautiful boy back to his dorm room seems like the greatest idea in the world.

It’s a terrible way to lose your virginity, but in a sprawl of over-heated, writhing limbs, between panting, breathless kisses and a rush of tounguesteethhandsyes Teddy can’t bring himself to regret it. He can’t even bring himself when morning breaks and the alcohol has burnt itself out of his system. The only thing he does regret is sneaking out like the coward he is. He’s not ready to be outed, not yet.

When he gets back, hours later, he’s still half-afraid the dark-haired guy will still be there, and half-wanting at the same time. But of course he’s not, and all he’s left behind him is an unclear imprint on the bed that Teddy traces, as if trying to recapture both the night and his errant, mystery lover. 

Teddy finishes the outline, but unlike Aladdin’s lamp it doesn’t summoned anything back, and with a short, sharp exhale Teddy turns away, ready to keep the past in the past and add another skeleton to his closet. Only for his eyes to find a hastily ripped page from his textbook (he guessed he deserved that) and a short, untidy note.

If you ever get out of Narnia, call me. 

Just a sentence coupled with a number. Nothing more, nothing less, and despite the vaguely mocking tone, it makes him smile slightly. 

He keeps the page, hoping one day he’ll have the balls to use it for more than just revision. 

 

5)

Dorrek found it somewhat ironic that he was now using the schooling the American Government insisted he had to destroy it. So Mrs Leyland had been correct when she said Geography would one day come in useful. There was a sick kind of amusement to be found in that, which Dorrek found easier to appreciate with every kill.

They’d given up on sending soldiers, as they had simply been mown down by his army of Super Skrulls, and instead merely begun sending their supers, which took slightly longer to slaughter and therefore made the death statistics less damning. 

Of course, he had gone through so many they appeared to be running out, and sending the less impressive or important in as canon fodder whilst they regrouped. He’d certainly never heard of this latest one, and he’d been something of an expert when he was still human.

He looked no older than Dorrek, but the blue of his magic was as pretty as he was, and as imposing. 

“Halt, Skrull!”

Dorrek couldn’t help but wonder what comics he read and how long he’d practiced to get his cloak to billow just right. Once upon a time when Dorrek had been Teddy he would have asked him, would have smiled and tried to befriend him, maybe even flirt a bit if he picked up the right signals. Instead he killed him. 

It was surprisingly hard to stop himself following him down in order to catch him, despite the fact he was the one who had caused him to fall. 

 

+1) 

In Eli’s opinion the library’s section on superheroes was surprisingly well stocked with good, academic titles, which was probably why it was so empty most of the time. Thus it was easy to see why he was more surprised than infuriated when he heard the loud, animated conversation emanating from it.

The two boys, when he checked, clearly weren’t doing any harm to his personal favourite section, and it looked like they were getting into a spirited debate about one of the books; The History of the Avengers, by the looks of it. After looking around and seeing there was no one around for them to disturb, Eli decided to leave them to it. It was near closing time anyway. 

Besides, when he came to chuck them out, he could always add in his own thoughts about Captain America. It was so hard to find true fanboys who really knew there stuff.


End file.
